Divine Bread

The daily sacrifice in the Temple is described by the Torah as “G-d’s bread.” Bread—the staff of life—is what unites the soul and the body. What makes the shidduch-match between these two disparate entities? It is the food that we ingest. For G-d—the Soul of the universe—to be wed to our material existence it was the daily sacrifice in the Temple. It demonstrated our desire to give of ourselves to Him. It is this gesture of love and devotion, repeated twice daily, that makes dwelling in this world appealing to G-d.

The Uniqueness of the Aleph Beis

The Hebrew alphabet is unlike any other. Kabbalah and Chassidus teach us that each letter represents a spiritual energy that corresponds to the characteristics of the individual letters. When G-d created the universe, He did so by channeling His creative powers. The channels were, and remain, the letters of the Hebrew Aleph Beis.

With this premise, we can understand why the Talmud assigns such significance to a prayer in which each verse begins with another letter of the Aleph Beis. This, the Talmud (Berachos 4b) says, is one of the reasons we recite Psalm 145 thrice daily. It also explains the uniqueness of Psalm 119, which contains 176 verses, 8 for each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet.

What does that have to do with this week’s parsha— Pinchas?

In this parsha, G-d commands the Jewish people to offer the Korban Tamid, two daily sacrifices in the Temple.

Ollelos Efraim makes the observation that this paragraph of the parsha contains all the letters of the alphabet except for gimmel and tes. According to him, the inclusion of all the letters (save two) points to the pivotal nature of this section of the Torah.

What is so special about the Tamid offering? And why does the inclusion of virtually all the Hebrew letters in this section of the parsha indicate its importance?

G-d’s “Bread”

The daily sacrifice in the Temple is described by the Torah as “G-d’s bread.” Chassidus explains that the term “bread” here is obviously a metaphor. Bread—the staff of life—is what unites the soul and the body. Without food the soul would return to its source—the Heavenly worlds, and the body to its origin—dust of the earth. What makes the shidduch-match between these two disparate entities? It is the food that we ingest, which contains within it spiritual energy that the soul craves. And only by staying put within the body can the soul access this elusive spiritual “fix” that it cannot get even in paradise.

In a similar vein, there must be a compelling reason for G-d—the Soul of the universe—to want to be wed to our physical and material existence. What is so enticing about our world that it provides G-d with the rationale for entering into our domain and thereby continuing to keep it in existence? It is the Korban Tamid, the daily sacrifice. The Korban Tamid demonstrated our desire to give of ourselves to Him. It is this gesture of love and devotion, repeated twice daily, that makes dwelling in this world appealing to G-d.

We can now understand the significance of the fact that this parsha section on the Tamid contains virtually all the letters of the alphabet. It indicates that these daily sacrifices activated all the Divine forces responsible for G-d creating and dwelling within our world.

Pinchas and the Seventeenth of Tammuz

We can now appreciate why this parsha is always read in close proximity to the Seventeenth of Tammuz. This day is a fast day. Although the primary reason is that it commemorates the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem on the way to the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash and the ensuing exile, the Talmud (Ta’anis end of 26a) lists four other tragedies that occurred on this day.

One of those tragedies was the decree that banned the offering of the Tamid. This tragedy is emblematic of the entire concept of exile, that necessitates fasting on this day until the rebuilding of the Beis Hamikdash The difference between exile and Redemption revolves around the degree of G-d’s relationship with the world, which in turn is based on G-d getting His “bread,” as it were. When the Tamid—G-d’s “bread”—was offered, the world was an appealing place for G-d. This cemented G-d’s “marriage” with His world.

When, however, the daily sacrifice ceased to be brought, it indicated that our world was no longer appealing to G-d and G-d’s presence was withdrawn from it. This state of separation has been Biblically likened to a divorce and it ultimately led to the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem, destruction of the Beis Hamikdash and the long exile.

Parshas Pinchas, particularly the section about the Korban Tamid, read either on the Shabbos before or the Shabbos after the 17th of Tammuz, provides the cure for the tragic results of the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem. By reading the words of the Torah about the Tamid we generate a Divine energy parallel to that of the actual Tamid sacrifice and hasten the process of our Redemption.

Response to Moses

The parsha of the daily sacrifice appears as a response to Moses’ request of G-d to appoint his successor. G-d’s response, in effect, was: “Before you ask me to do something for My children, tell My children to do something for Me.”

On its face, it is difficult to understand why G-d made this demand for the Tamid as a response to Moses’ request for the appointment of a successor. Weren’t the Jews already commanded to observe all the commandments? Why did G-d have to add a new one concerning the daily offerings? Moreover, the commandment to bring a daily offering was not really new. It was mentioned in an earlier parsha. Why did G-d mention just this one Mitzvah and not all the others as prerequisites to His choosing a new leader?

The Ultimate Shadchan

The function of a genuine leader is not just to guide and inspire. The ultimate leaders from Moses through Moshiach are conduits of G-d’s presence into the world. They serve as the matchmakers who facilitate the marriage between G- d and the Jewish people.

There is a caveat to the shadchan analogy. Whereas the shadchan merely brings bride and groom together after which he or she is out of the picture, Moses, and other leaders in his mold, are also an integral part of the marriage, for they too are members of the Jewish community wedded to G-d. Indeed, they are the ones who feel the relationship most acutely.

The relationship of Jewish leaders to the people has been compared to the relationship of the brain to the entire body. Without our brain, we cannot interact with anything outside of ourselves. For example, without the brain we could not travel to another location to visit another person. However, the brain is not merely a map that you can leave in the car when you enter the other person’s home; the brain goes along with the person and is actually more intimately connected to that location and the other person than the legs that transport the person, or the hands that shake the other’s hands.

Similarly, Moses and Moshiach—and all the great leaders in between—bring G-d into the consciousness of the world. However, they are an integral part of that same world even as they are transparent souls that enable G-d’s light to shine through them onto the world.

A great leader must therefore be simultaneously connected to the world that he leads and to G-d, whom he channels.

Thus, when Moses asks G-d to appoint a successor, he was asking for the ultimate “shadchan.”

[It is interesting to note that the word Shadchan has the gematria of v’ahavta-and you shall love. The plural form shadchanim has the gematria of Moshiach ben Dovid!] In response to Moses’ request, G-d shows him that before He appoints a new leader to channel G-d’s energy into the world, the people have to do their part in creating the marriage, which is achieved by way of the Tamid offering.

The Missing Letters

The question remains, why are the letters gimmel and tes missing from this parsha of the Tamid sacrifice? If the presence of all the letters signifies the all-encompassing power of this offering—that it embodies all of the Divine instruments of speech that give existence and life to the world—why are two letters missing?

Ollelos Efraim answers that these two letters form the world get, which means divorce. The Talmud (Gittin 90b) states that when two people get divorced “the Altar sheds tears.” The Altar upon which the sacrifices were offered symbolizes the ultimate union between G-d and Israel and by extension the entire world. A get, which effects a separation between husband and wife, is a direct contradiction to the concept of the Divine union with Israel. Thus, the letters that signify separation are absent in this parsha.

Olleles Efraim adds another fascinating morsel: The very reason a bill of divorce is called a get is because there is no place in the entire Torah where these two letters are written together. Thus, these two letters represent the ultimate in separation.

Reversing the Reversal

As mentioned, the entire existence of exile is a form of separation and a “taste” of divorce. In exile, there is a reversal of the Tamid dynamic which keeps the gimmel and the tes separated. In exile, the Altar sheds tears because we lack the Beis Hamikdash. Our ability to bring G-d into our collective consciousness is severely constrained.

Moshiach, like Moses and Joshua, is not just a great leader and teacher but one who channels Divine energy into the world and thereby cements the marriage between G-d and the Jewish people.

Twin Constants

In addition to our prayers that take the place of the Tamid sacrifice, there are also other aspects of the Tamid that we can do now to reverse the tragedy of exile.

The Tamid sacrifice was offered twice daily. This alludes to the two “constants” with which the Orach Chaim section of the Shulchan Aruch - Code of Jewish law - begins and ends:

It opens with the verse: “I place G-d before me tamidconstantly” and it concludes with: “a happy heart celebrates Tamid-constantly.” Moshiach’s power to remove the stigma of the get and the tears associated with Galus-separation requires a twined approach of constant awareness of G-d and constant joy. G-d cannot dwell in a place of sadness.

The key to revealing Moshiach and the ultimate Redemption (read: marriage) is to study and meditate on the parts of the Torah which focus on G-d’s presence in our lives and dismiss all depressing thoughts from our minds. This approach is not only a way to hasten the Redemption; it is our way of beginning to experience the Redemption itself.

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Pinchas by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.